Moses and the Magicians in Bonaventure, Peter Abelard, and Al-Ghazâlî

MOSES AND THE MAGICIANS Moses and the magicians in Bonaventure, Peter Abelard, and al-Ghazâlî Moisés y los magos según Buenaventura, Pedro Abelardo y Algazel THÉRÈSE-ANNE DRUART The Catholic University of America School of Philosophy Washington, DC 20064 (Estados Unidos) [email protected] Abstract: In the Bible the magicians could Resumen: En la Biblia los magos pudieron duplicate Aaron’s feat of turning a rod into replicar la hazaña de Aarón al transformar a serpent. Bonaventure claims that the su cayado en una serpiente. Buenaventura serpents are not the effect of direct divine sostiene que las serpientes no fueron produ- intervention. Peter Abelard claims that this cidas como el efecto de una intervención di- story shows we do not really know how to vina directa. Pedro Abelardo afi rma que esta distinguish miracles from magic happe- historia muestra que no sabemos a ciencia nings. On the other hand, in the Qur’ân cierta cómo distinguir los milagros de los the magicians do not really manage to du- acontecimientos mágicos. Por otro lado, en plicate Moses’ feat: they only produce fake el Corán los magos no consiguen realmente serpents. Yet, al-Ghazâlî too does not wish replicar la hazaña de Moisés: solamente to put much weight on this miracle, preci- producen serpientes falsas. Por ello, Algazel sely because of the general diffi culty of dis- prefi ere no dar mucho peso a este milagro, tinguishing miracles from magic. precisamente por la difi cultad general que hay en distinguir los milagros de la magia. Keywords: Bonaventure, Peter Abelard, al- Ghazâlî, Moses, miracles, magic, prophecy, Palabras clave: Buenaventura, Pedro Abe- certainty. lardo, Ghazâlî, Moisés, milagros, magia, pro- fecía, certeza. RECIBIDO: ABRIL DE 2014 / ACEPTADO: DICIEMBRE DE 2014 ANUARIO FILOSÓFICO 48/1 (2015) 141-158 141 ISSN: 0065-5215 THÉRÈSE-ANNE DRUART n the Latin West the theme of “Moses and the magicians” is well I known. Exodus 7: 8-13 tells us the following: The Lord told Moses and Aaron, “If Pharaoh demands that you work a sign or wonder, you shall say to Aaron: Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will be changed into a snake.” Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the Lord had commanded. Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it was changed into a snake. Pharaoh, in turn, summoned wise men and sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did likewise by their magic arts. Each one threw down his staff, and it was changed into a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed their staffs (Saint Joseph Edition of the New American Bible). The biblical account makes clear that the changing of a staff into a snake, which originally looked like a miracle intended to validate Moses’ claim to be sent by God, was easily duplicated by each magi- cian. Therefore, it was not really a very telling prophetic miracle. In the end what validates Moses’ claim is that the snake produced by his brother and spokesperson Aaron swallowed the magicians’ snakes. This story points to the need for determining what differ- entiates miracles from magic. The Qur’ân also tells the story of Moses and the magicians and al-Ghazâlî, the greatest Sunni Muslim intellectual, who died in 1111, refers to it several times and, therefore, he too ponders about miracles and magic. But before moving to al-Ghazâlî I shall briefl y explain how two Latin philosophers, Bonaventure and Peter Ab- elard, deal with the story of “Moses and the magicians” in order to better understand that thinkers both in the Latin Christian world or in Islamic lands faced the same issues, i.e., such as explaining 1. how miracles or magic are possible; 2. how one can distinguish miracles from magic; and 3. whether “miracles” such as the changing of a 142 ANUARIO FILOSÓFICO 48/1 (2015) 141-158 MOSES AND THE MAGICIANS staff into a snake constitute a solid ground to accept as veracious a prophetic claim and so be moved to faith.1 Let us begin with an explanation of how the changing of the staff into a snake can happen and whether it really comes about by a direct intervention of God. In the twelfth century Peter Lom- bard’s Book of Sentences became the Theology Textbook for centu- ries. Therein, at II, d. 17, c.3, Lombard speaks of Moses changing his staff into a snake and of the creation of Adam as an adult. He concludes that Adam was not made by inferior causes but rather by the will and power of God, as they were no seminal reasons pre- ceding his creation. Lombard’s next distinction treats of woman’s creation from Adam’s rib.2 In his Commentary on this latter article of the Book of Sentences, II, d. 18, art. 1, q. 2, Bonaventure examines whether woman was created from Adam’s rib by a causal reason, i.e., directly by divine intervention, or according to natural or seminal reason, and so without direct divine intervention. Bonaventure care- fully makes a triple distinction between ways things are produced, at least when terms are used stricto sensu. First, causal reason in- dicates direct divine intervention and so a miracle, when the event is unusual. Second, seminal reason does not require direct divine intervention and the product is not similar to the producer. Third, natural reason does not require direct divine intervention and the product is similar to the producer, as for example dogs producing puppies and cats kittens. Bonaventure argues that woman was created by causal reason, i.e., by direct intervention from God and not by seminal reasons. Why? If something is produced by seminal reasons or nature, any- one who has the appropriate knowledge theoretically can repeat or duplicate the process or event as from the very beginning, by means of a seminal reason, the being to be produced was already present in 1. A very generous and scholarly referee, whom I cannot thank enough, makes the impor- tant point that Jewish philosophers, such as Gersonides in the Wars of the Lords, VI, 12 & 10, and Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah. Hilkhot Yesode ha-Torah VIII, 1-3, and the Guide of the Perplexed, III, 24, raise the sane issues. 2. P. L OMBARDI, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, 3rd ed., Tomi. I, Pars II. (Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, Grottaferrata, 1971) 412-13, 416-21. ANUARIO FILOSÓFICO 48/1 (2015) 141-158 143 THÉRÈSE-ANNE DRUART inchoate state in nature and so no direct causal divine intervention is required. Except for God, no one is able to produce a woman out of a male rib and so this was the result of direct divine intervention and a miracle. On the other hand, not only were Moses and Aaron both able to change their staff into a snake but so were the magicians. So turning a staff into a snake is a repeatable process and not the effect of a direct divine intervention, though it constitutes an unusual event that happened according to seminal reasons as the product, snakes, was not similar to the producers, magicians.3 In contrast when snakes beget snakes, as they usually do, then the effect is by natural reason. It follows that there are two non-miraculous ways of producing snakes. In the same discussion Bonaventure makes another point about miracles by distinguishing the natural slow process of the eating of bread and its long term effect in the production of a human being according to seminal reason from the immediate and instantaneous turning of bread into the body of a man that is according to causal reason and, therefore, miraculous. If mediate, the effect can be said to be according to a seminal reason, as is the case if the bread is eaten and digested and converted into a humor, and afterwards in the loins is turned into semen and then into a man. If, on the other hand, it immediately goes on to produce its effect, as is the case where bread is immediately formed into the body of man, it is said to do this not according to seminal reason but according to causal reasons.4 3. S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, Tom. II (Quaracchi, 1885) 436: “Unde appropriate loquendo, cum magi ex virgis fecerunt serpentes, hoc fuit secondum rationes semi- nales; cum vero serpentes, sicut assolent, serpentes generant, hoc fi t secundum rationes naturales.” 4. A. B. WOLTER (trans.) in J. F. WIPPEL, A. B. WOLTER (eds.), Medieval Philosophy: From St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa (The Free Press, New York, 1969) 322; Latin (Quaracchi ed., 1885) 437. 144 ANUARIO FILOSÓFICO 48/1 (2015) 141-158 MOSES AND THE MAGICIANS In other words when an ordinary process that occurs according to seminal reasons and normally takes a fair amount of time suddenly occurs instantaneously, then there was a direct divine intervention and a miracle occurred. The miracle consists in the speeding up of the process and no one other than God can do so. Bonaventure has given us two criteria in order to distinguish true miracles: 1. they cannot be duplicated by ordinary human be- ings; 2. they must be instantaneous, whereas, if there is some ordinary parallel process, this process would be long drawn. Bonaventure’s triple distinction of causal, seminal, and natural reasons allowed him to explain miracles and distinguish them from ordinary or magical processes. Let us now turn to Peter Abelard to determine whether what appears as a miracle, the changing of a staff into a snake, should be the basis for the act of faith.

Load more